What is a Scotch Eggless®?

Probably my most asked question at Farmers Markets and Events, “what IS a Scotch Eggless®?” I guess because they look so much like their traditional meat and egg based cousins, but essentially that is what is is. A fully vegan version of a Scotch Egg.

The questions that follow usually revolve around “but HOW?!” Ahh, now there lies the fun!

The Haggis Scotch Eggless®

What IS a Scotch Eggless®? A fully vegan version of a Scotch Egg!

Food! By Lizzi started out as a vegetarian business and slowly became vegan after I made the transition myself. We’ve always been known for very British picnic style foods and something that was obviously missing was a Scotch Egg. I used to stand at Farmers Markets opposite stalls full of them and think “Y’know I really miss them”. There is a weird element of comfort to a Scotch Egg. Personally I think it is the social connection, a plate of Scotch Eggs either mini or full size can always be found chopped or whole at a good old fashioned buffet. And what picnic would be complete without at least one? Buffets and picnics usually come about as part of a celebration or gathering, whether that be a family party, wedding, Christmas or a group of friends at a park with a bring and share meal and a blanket or two. It’s about being part of something, a connection, and a Scotch Egg is definitely something that invokes the memories and feelings of those occasions.

Of course you can also eat Scotch Eggs alone and many do, myself included pre vegan days but there is something about that almost tennis ball sized fried food stuff that reminds you of where you were at the time.

It’s funny how food can hold so much emotion for us.

Anyway, standing looking at the Scotch Eggs opposite me one day it slowly dawned on me that is can’t be that hard to make a vegetarian Scotch Egg. So I did. I made them in about 4 different flavours and it went well. And then I started being asked if they were vegan by my growing vegan customers, so I set myself a new challenge, vegan Scotch Eggs. Somewhere in the middle of all this I went vegan myself so once again found myself missing the lowly Scotch Egg, so I completely understood the excitement at seeing a possible vegan version.

Scotch Eggless®

I set about tweaking my recipe and making some changes and most importantly sussing what to use as the “egg” part. I had a look online and there are some wonderfully creative centres ranging from avocado to molded silken tofu and mashed potato but I wanted to keep it simple. After all the traditional version is a relatively simple concept. I thought about the types of Scotch Eggs available and remembered the mini version or Party Egg as Quorn call them, using egg mayonnaise as a centre and that was that. A few tweaks and the fully vegan Scotch Eggless® was born!

So what is it?

“A Scotch Eggless® is a vegan Scotch Egg. It has a tofu based “egg mayonnaise” centre, surrounded by soya mince, coated in breadcrumbs and deep fried!”

So there you have it. It is in its simplest, most basic form, it is a vegan scotch egg. But oooooooh it is also so much more. To pinch a phrase from M&S…

“this is not just a vegan Scotch Egg, this is a Food! By Lizzi Scotch Eggless®”

What do I mean by that? Well to start off at the time of typing our Scotch Eggless® come in 29 different flavours. Yes, twenty nine. I was hoping hoping to have no30 ready before Christmas but that is really rapidly approaching and possibly a little over ambitious even for me! They all start out from our Original recipe which is of course no1 and vary between what I tend to call safe flavours and a little more adventurous (I’m looking at you Full English and Mac n Cheeze) I will pop a list at the end for you to peruse at leisure or even use as a tick list. See a flavour or two you fancy? You can of course purchase them online by clicking here!

Then, in the way of these things, and because I do love a good challenge, things got possibly a little silly. Sillier than 29 flavours you say? Yes.

Because we went sweet too.

The Eggstraveganza – Creme Egg Sweet Scotch Egg

A few years ago a lady hit the headlines near Easter for creating a Cadburys Creme Egg Scotch Egg. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t the first as recipes had been floating around for a while but she was the first to make it to the national press and they went mad for it. Well we can’t let the omnis have all the fun now can we?!

First I set about making a vegan Creme Egg. Then sussing how to stick the chocolate around it. But what made no sense to me was rolling it in grated chocolate. I get it, it’s sweet, it’s more chocolate, it’s indulgent….it feels like cheating! Some people use flakes, some literally grate a bar of chocolate, some use crushed biscuits to make it look more realistic. Me? I roll them in breadcrumb and deep fry them of course!! Why make them look more realistic, why not go all out. Deep. Fry. Them. Yes I deep fry cake and chocolate. Well, the fryers were already there and hot.

And why stop at Creme Eggs? We have Rose ones, Biscoff ones, Mint ones and more! Fancy a Christmas treat? Mince Pie and Custard should do it. But really this deserves a blog post all of it’s own so I will stop here and just leave you the link to the shop so you can see them in all their glory. Find that here.

Full Bloom Sweet Scotch Egg

One final little point I guess I should address quickly in this mammoth, beast of a blog.. the ®. It follows the words Scotch Eggless® every where. But what does it mean? It means that Scotch Eggless is ours. It means it is a registered trademark and belongs to me. In short that means if it doesn’t say Food! By Lizzi on the Bag (or box) it’s not a Food! By Lizzi Scotch Eggless® IN the Bag! You can currently only find our vegan Scotch Eggs in 3 places. 2 are directly from me, be that at our stall at a Farmers Market or Event or via our website. The third is from the fabulous Little Shop of Vegans in Norwich!

So there you have it. Now you know what it is and where to find it and also that sweet versions exist too! Happy Eating! xx